30 лучших рассказов американских писателей. Коллектив авторов

dowagers.

      But, after all, this critical circle is not close enough to the stage to see the actors’ faces and catch the subtler byplay. It can only frown and lean, ask questions and make satisfactory deductions from its set of postulates, such as the one which states that every young man with a large income leads the life of a hunted partridge. It never really appreciates the drama of the shifting, semi-cruel world of adolescence. No; boxes, orchestra-circle, principals, and chorus be represented by the medley of faces and voices that sway to the plaintive African rhythm of Dyer’s dance orchestra.

      From sixteen-year-old Otis Ormonde, who has two more years at Hill School, to G. Reece Stoddard, over whose bureau at home hangs a Harvard[56] law diploma; from little Madeleine Hogue, whose hair still feels strange and uncomfortable on top of her head, to Bessie MacRae, who has been the life of the party a little too long – more than ten years – the medley is not only the centre of the stage but contains the only people capable of getting an unobstructed view of it.

      With a flourish and a bang the music stops. The couples exchange artificial, effortless smiles, facetiously repeat ‘la-de-da-da dum-dum,’ and then the clatter of young feminine voices soars over the burst of clapping.

      A few disappointed stags caught in mid-floor as they bad been about to cut in subsided listlessly back to the walls, because this was not like the riotous Christmas dances – these slimmer hops were considered just pleasantly warm and exciting, where even the younger marrieds rose and performed ancient waltzes and terrifying fox trots to the tolerant amusement of their younger brothers and sisters.

      Warren McIntyre, who casually attended Yale, being one of the unfortunate stags, felt in his dinner-coat pocket for a cigarette and strolled out onto the wide, semi-dark veranda, where couples were scattered at tables, filling the lantern-hung night with vague words and hazy laughter. He nodded here and there at the less absorbed and as he passed each couple some half-forgotten fragment of a story played in his mind, for it was not a large city and everyone was Who’s Who to everyone else’s past. There, for example, were Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest, who had been privately engaged for three years. Everyone knew that as soon as Jim managed to hold a job for more than two months she would marry him. Yet how bored they both looked, and how wearily Ethel regarded Jim sometimes, as if she wondered why she had trained the vines of her affection on such a wind-shaken poplar.

      Warren was nineteen and rather pitying with those of his friends who hadn’t gone East to college. But, like most boys, he bragged tremendously about the girls of his city when he was away from it. There was Genevieve Ormonde, who regularly made the rounds of dances, house-parties, and football games at Princeton[57], Yale[58], Williams[59], and Cornell[60]; there was black-eyed Roberta Dillon, who was quite as famous to her own generation as Hiram Johnson or Ty Cobb; and, of course, there was Marjorie Harvey, who besides having a fairylike face and a dazzling, bewildering tongue was already justly celebrated for having turned five cart-wheels in succession during the last pump-and-slipper dance at New Haven[61].

      Warren, who had grown up across the street from Marjorie, had long been ‘crazy about her’. Sometimes she seemed to reciprocate his feeling with a faint gratitude, but she had tried him by her infallible test and informed him gravely that she did not love him. Her test was that when she was away from him she forgot him and had affairs with other boys. Warren found this discouraging, especially as Marjorie had been making little trips all summer, and for the first two or three days after each arrival home he saw great heaps of mail on the Harveys’ hall table addressed to her in various masculine handwritings. To make matters worse, all during the month of August she had been visited by her cousin Bernice from Eau Claire, and it seemed impossible to see her alone. It was always necessary to hunt round and find someone to take care of Bernice. As August waned this was becoming more and more difficult.

      Much as Warren worshipped Marjorie he had to admit that Cousin Bernice was sorta dopeless. She was pretty, with dark hair and high color, but she was no fun on a party. Every Saturday night he danced a long arduous duty dance with her to please Marjorie, but he had never been anything but bored in her company.

      ‘Warren’ – a soft voice at his elbow broke in upon his thoughts, and he turned to see Marjorie, flushed and radiant as usual. She laid a hand on his shoulder and a glow settled almost imperceptibly over him.

      ‘Warren,’ she whispered ‘do something for me – dance with Bernice. She’s been stuck with little Otis Ormonde for almost an hour.’

      Warren’s glow faded.

      ‘Why – sure,’ he answered half-heartedly.

      ‘You don’t mind, do you? I’ll see that you don’t get stuck.’

      ‘’Sall right.’

      Marjorie smiled – that smile that was thanks enough.

      ‘You’re an angel, and I’m obliged loads.’

      With a sigh the angel glanced round the veranda, but Bernice and Otis were not in sight. He wandered back inside, and there in front of the women’s dressing-room he found Otis in the centre of a group of young men who were convulsed with laughter. Otis was brandishing a piece of timber he had picked up, and discoursing volubly.

      ‘She’s gone in to fix her hair,’ he announced wildly. ‘I’m waiting to dance another hour with her.’

      Their laughter was renewed.

      ‘Why don’t some of you cut in?’ cried Otis resentfully. ‘She likes more variety.’

      ‘Why, Otis,’ suggested a friend ‘you’ve just barely got used to her.’

      ‘Why the two-by-four, Otis?’ inquired Warren, smiling.

      ‘The two-by-four? Oh, this? This is a club. When she comes out I’ll hit her on the head and knock her in again.’

      Warren collapsed on a settee and howled with glee.

      ‘Never mind, Otis,’ he articulated finally. ‘I’m relieving you this time.’

      Otis simulated a sudden fainting attack and handed the stick to Warren.

      ‘If you need it, old man,’ he said hoarsely.

      No matter how beautiful or brilliant a girl may be, the reputation of not being frequently cut in on makes her position at a dance unfortunate. Perhaps boys prefer her company to that of the butterflies with whom they dance a dozen times an but, youth in this jazz-nourished generation is temperamentally restless, and the idea of fox-trotting more than one full fox trot with the same girl is distasteful, not to say odious. When it comes to several dances and the intermissions between she can be quite sure that a young man, once relieved, will never tread on her wayward toes again.

      Warren danced the next full dance with Bernice, and finally, thankful for the intermission, he led her to a table on the veranda. There was a moment’s silence while she did unimpressive things with her fan.

      ‘It’s hotter here than in Eau Claire,’ she said.

      Warren stifled a sigh and nodded. It might be for all he knew or cared. He wondered idly whether she was a poor conversationalist because she got no attention or got no attention because she was a poor conversationalist.

      ‘You going to be here much longer?’ he asked and then turned rather red. She might suspect his reasons for asking.

      ‘Another week,’ she answered, and stared at him as if to lunge at his next remark when it left his lips.

      Warren fidgeted. Then with a sudden charitable impulse he decided to try part of his line on her. He turned and looked at her eyes.

      ‘You’ve got an awfully kissable mouth,’ he began quietly.

      This was a remark that he sometimes

56

Harvard – the USA oldest higher educational institution, founded in 1636.

57

Princeton – the fourth oldest university in the USA, founded in New Jersey in 1746.

58

Yale – a private university in New Heaven, the third oldest in the US, founded in 1701.

59

Williams – Roger Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee, US.

60

Cornell – a university in Ithaca, a city in south-central New York state, founded in 1862.

61

New Haven – a city in south-central Connecticut, founded in 1638.